Gender Beef: “Men are scum” and “Women are wicked”?
I’ve noticed a toxic, yet hilarious gender beef in Lagos and by extension, Nigerian social media. Women are supposedly “wicked” and men are to identify with the pronouns “he/his/scum”.
Half the time, there’s always some Post-Breakup-Stress-Disorder girl on your WhatsApp contact list dishing unsolicited relationship guidance and warnings on the need to steer clear of Yoruba men. Also, in your male gang of 4, at least 2 of the mandem will always chip this in every phone conversation with you: “Padi mi, sora fobinrin”.
It’s usually just cruise, because half the time, the lamentations are super funny. I don’t know for the gyals; if they have their therapy sessions as cruise or it’s simply tears and toilet paper. It’s possible we process hurt differently but that’s beside the point, that’s not the punchline of what this is!
The punch line, punch issues or punch questions are:
Is this whole beef a misunderstanding? Are all men really scum? Are all women more wicked than Young John? Is breakfast really a national cake? Is it romance nowadays or just tolerance? Has social media hyped this all up, and love still happens on a low?
For a long long time, I’ve been a stranger to this beef. I was vegetarian, and what’s being vegetarian? I was in love. Pause. Take a breath. Then, cry.
When all of this gender beef was starting to become mainstream (which I believe was 2018/19), I had just started seeing this girl in my final year in the University. When your love gets past the pandemic, it’s safe to say that you might actually last forever so you can as well start christening your children advance.
“I want the first child to be Shola, we’ll have him in Birmingham. Shortly after our masters, yeah? We both know there isn’t really any future left in Nigeria..”
You sleep together virtually every night on a video call (mobile data companies and instagram vendors are the real beneficiaries of love), you buy presents, you argue, you go for dinners at restaurants with terrible food but great aesthetics, you argue again, then you both wait until next month hoping she sees her period. Period. That’s probably all that your relationship entails.
Oh, that’s not all, there’s one or two more things — you both have demons, some compromisable, some not as compromisable. She’s okay if you fart in bed but she’s not okay if you disrespect Nigerian pastors. She’s okay if you chilled all night with the mandem but she’s concerned if you smoked with them. On the other hand, you’re okay if she sleeps halfway through your rant but not so okay that she doesn’t empathise in the way that you do. You’re okay if she demands an intense level of honesty and vulnerability from you but you’re not okay when she comes off as selectively truthful.
Okay now, period. Your relationship might have lasted the pandemic but it didn’t last the second dose of the Astrazeneca vaccine.
The commitment ends, but love doesn’t. It’s a gift and a curse. Now, you start to truly find yourself. However, you’ve lost the person closest to yourself. The two of your mandem who rant about the wickedness of women become less funny, They become real. Your reality. You know your ex-woman is broken, but two broken pieces do not reflect– You don’t reflect images or reflect upon events together anymore. You can’t reproduce again, but you can both reproduce viral tweets — “men are scum“, “women are wicked”, “men are attracted to anything in a skirt”, “women are attracted to anything with cash”, “my sister’s boyfriend..”
What we have aren’t facts. They’re just a supremacy of sentiments. Sentiment sells, but is sentiment the only thing up for sale? Has social media created a “calamity hype culture” where divorces get more retweets than marriages? Is there a new form of addiction? An addiction to tales of the bad, of things that don’t work out? Is our definition of love slowly evolving into sleeping with one eye open? Have we finally let toxic realities invade our mind?
The solution is short.
Heal.
Tell your neighbour: heal!
There’s so many sad eyes on happy faces and everyone’s a throwback trauma. Let’s practise healing before we get back on the road. Let’s not mess up people due to the mess up we’ve been through. Go for therapy. Next time you see a red flag, don’t mistake it for a circus. Run from toxicity. Pick up a healthy routine that involves less social media. Get a new skill or hobby. Protect your energy.
I’m rooting for you. We’re all alone in this together.
